The Pensions Infrastructure Platform, a venture set up by UK pension funds to invest in public assets like schools and hospitals, plans to recruit staff and officially register as a fund manager in the coming year, taking on profit-seeking infrastructure managers such as Macquarie, Goldman Sachs and M&G.

In the long term the not-for-profit PIP, which was set up by the National Association of Pension Funds, has ambitions to be one of the leading investors in UK infrastructure, according to its new chief executive Mike Weston.